Tom Corsellis, Shelter Centre

The Shelter and Settlement Library

Contents - Project overview

- From current, beta to final library

- Existing and new features

- More than 1000 new resources

- Channels

- Regional Advisory Groups (RAGs)

- Humanitarian Taxonomy

- Humanitarian Library

Project overview

What’s still to come?

- Finetuning of design

- Developing world’s first Humanitarian Taxonomy

- Migration of content from http://sheltercentre.org/library

- Regional Tour to Promote Library

Scope

- Objective 1: Develop and support the Shelter Library

- Objective 2: Develop and support a community of practice to sustain Objective 1

Timeline

- Original timeframe was 1 year

- Started in August 2012

- Ends November 2013 (with no-cost extension of 2 months)

Current Shelter Centre library

Beta version of Shelter & Settlement Library

Final version of Shelter & Settlement Library

- Users can upload documents – in any language

- Users can create and share ‘channels’ within the library, supporting specific organisations, operations, topics, handovers and trainings

- Intelligent searches list search results based

on the popularity of documents

- Searches of the library will suggest other

documents of interest to users

Existing features of the library

- Users can comment on resources and channels, allowing for discussion around certain topics

- Trusted users can promote resources, giving them more visibility in the library

- Users can bookmark resources for later download, this is useful in areas with low bandwidth

- Humanitarian library with libraries for each cluster/sector ensures that resources are properly categorised

New features of the library

- Capacity and location of the country’s main suppliers of relevant goods and services

- Housing typologies and their vulnerabilities to prevalent hazards

- Hazard vulnerability

- Relevant local laws and regulations such as building and zoning codes, land tenure regulations and labour regulations

More than 1000 new resources

Channels1. Click ‘create channel’ on the library website2. Upload new resources, or add already existing ones to your channel

- RAG members support with identification of resources and dissemination of the library amongst their peers

- Currently around 20 RAG members, covering Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe

- Initial meetings held via WebEx in June 2013

- Feedback from RAG members has been included in the redesign of the library website

Regional Advisory Groups (RAGs)

Humanitarian TaxonomyShelter Centre is developing a Humanitarian Taxonomy, which is based on existing UN taxonomies and expanded with terms from other reputable sources such as PreventionWeb, ShelterCluster.org and Shelter Centre’s existing taxonomy.

Regional Tour

- Receiving feedback and increasing uptake and usage of the library

- Regional consultation for the one-week training

- Takes place in November

Humanitarian Library- Born out of the need for a library the encompasses all

sectors: USAID, for instance, uses a definition for shelter & settlement that is wider than the cluster definition of shelter, so where do you go to find all information related to shelter & settlement or any other sector?

- There is currently no other global humanitarian library: the UN/OCHA global resources www.reliefweb.int and www.humanitarianresponse.info support information management, not knowledge management: they do not have common libraries

- Global humanitarian library knowledge management compliments global UN information management

14h30 – 15h00

1. How might the channels be of most use to agencies and initiatives?

2. How might the channels be of most use to field workers and operations?

3. How might the channels be of most use to new innovations and research?

4. How might we best engage and involve the existing knowledge bases that you

use? e.g. ReliefWeb, PreventionWeb, HumanitarianResponse, academia, private

sector etc.

15h00 – 15h30

Plenary session

Today’s break out sessions